April 28, 2023 • 40 mins
In this LL, Lisa comes on to discuss “Is Happiness a Choice?”- what the experts say, and her recent findings of her expanded definition of “happiness”.
She spills:
- The METREAT- why she created it and what her participants can expect in Guatemala next week!
- What “happiness” means beyond smiles
- The building blocks of happiness- and why so many of us are “not happy”
- The things we “should know about happiness” but forget when we’re going through it
Article Referenced: https://time.com/6241099/daily-habits-happiness-experts/
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Host @lisahayim
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Edited by Houston Tilley
Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
No, you'll be Even when times get hard and you
feel you're in the dark, you see just how beautiful
life can be. When you saften your heart, you can
(00:23):
finally start to live your truth seious life. Hello everyone,
welcome back to The Truth Is Life. It's your host
Lisa Haim, and I'm pretty excited to be on the
mic and touch base with all of you. I've been
on social break for I don't know, like I think
(00:44):
it's three weeks. I keep saying that I don't know
like where I am in space and time. The fact
that it is April right now is just overwhelmingly to
my brain. You know, a lot has happened in the
past year for me personally. I know a lot of
you are familiar, but just to kind of like recap
(01:06):
the events of just six months, I had an ectopic pregnancy,
so that was a loss, followed by my daughter getting sick,
a hospitalization, a couple of months of waiting and recovering
from that, and then another sickness and hospitalization. So I'm
coming out of the other side of that and there's
(01:26):
a lot there. I've mentioned it in this podcast, and
I don't want it to be overkilled by any means,
but I also don't want to not give you some
insight as to what I'm going through. But more importantly,
like pretend that I'm fine. We don't need more people
pretending they're fine. We need, I think, more people showing
up when they're kind of not fine, as long as
(01:48):
they have a limited capacity to do so, which in
this moment I do. But it has been a lot
of taking care of myself and my home, and she's
doing amazing. That's the question I get the most and
I'm happiest to answer, which is solely is really doing phenomenal.
We do have a lot of question marks left over
and a lot of follow up doctor's appointments, and so
(02:10):
my life has been kind of truncated by that taking
care of myself and preparing for the metreat, which we
planned months ago and is coming at actually a really
perfect time if you're unfamiliar. Back in August of twenty
twenty two, I took myself on my own retreat by myself,
(02:31):
scheduled a bunch of different healing modalities and time where
I could step away from my responsibilities and dive inward
to figure out, like, who the heck am I now?
After all of the life changes that I've gone through.
It was incredible and I felt called to create this
for other people as well. Has got a lot of
(02:51):
demand for oh, how can I create my own metreat?
And I was like, you know what, I'm feeling really
called to do a retreat this year. So it is
called the met Treat to Guatemala. We have twenty participants
going down to Guatemala for a couple of days, and
within these couple of days, we are doing a lot
of yoga, somatic yoga, leaning into our bodies, spirituality, journaling, meditation, breathworks,
(03:17):
sound baths, connecting with each other. One of the biggest
concerns that people had was going on a retreat that
they found out from the Internet and not knowing anybody
else there and being really afraid of like who are
these people. So one of the things that we did,
which has been super anchoring for me as well, is
we had a WhatsApp group. We have a WhatsApp group,
and the WhatsApp group has been incredible and sharing different
(03:41):
parts of ourselves over the last few months. I'll often
jump in with a prompt where people just share really
honestly what's going on or somebody else just might chime
in and say something really positive or something honest. And
it's pretty incredible because none of us have met before,
and yet we are walking into this trip with some
sort of a solid foundation of a friendship. And I'm
(04:02):
really excited for this to come to Fruition in a
little under two weeks now, and I am a host
and a healer on it. I will be providing some
of the services, but I'm also going to be sitting
back to enjoy the magic of the other activities that
are going to be going on that I'm not myself leading.
(04:22):
I will be teaching a little bit of yoga, but
I really wanted to bring the magic of who I
go to when things get stormy, and so I'm bringing
one of my favorite yoga teachers, Tracy Toomey McQuaid. She
teaches at Yoga Shanti, which you can stream, and Tracy
is magical. She's a voice of an angel. She plays
this harmonium and she has a way of just seeing
(04:44):
such profound things that when you walk away from the mat,
like something just shifts in your life and makes a
little bit more sense now than it did before. I'm
also bringing when I went on my own metreat. I
went to Florida because my best friend and her wife
were living there, staying there say they live in London.
And these two women are incredible mirrors reflectors in my life.
(05:06):
They're always helping me get through hard stuff by really
just showing up as mirrors, helping me see myself more clearly.
And I was afraid that being with them would take
away from my carved out alone time, but it actually
did the opposite. I was able to dive more deeply
into myself by having them there to help me prompt
myself ask furthering, deepening questions. And what I learned from
(05:27):
that is that ametri does not need to be done alone.
And what these women will shortly find out, if they
haven't already, is that by having people around, we actually
engage in conversations which take us more deeply into ourselves.
And so Jerry's my best friend who will not be
able to come, but her wife Lulu is coming. She's
going to be one of the hosts. So I'm just
like so excited to bring these group of women that
(05:50):
trusts me immensely into a healing safe space and bring
with me some human energies that are some of the
best that I know. And when I say best that
I know, I don't just mean like overwhelming happiness. I
mean people that, yes, they are the cheerleaders, they are
going to be the first ones wake and shaking when
we do that every morning, but they are just people
(06:13):
that also know how to help you get through heavy
things and we'll be real with you, kind of like
big sisters type of a feeling. And I'm just really
really excited to go. It definitely comes with fears as well,
but I do trust that things are in place at home,
and I am feeling secure to go on this journey
(06:37):
for all the people that put trust in me and
also for myself. So today on Lisa Lately, it's a
little bit different of Lisa Lately. I'm not going to
cover four distinct topics. Instead, I wanted to talk a
little bit about happiness. As I've been on social media break,
I always kind of find interesting things that inspire me
(07:01):
that otherwise, with the use of social media regularly in
my life, I might see not have time to fully explore,
or if I fully explore it, I might not give
it the full brain attention and power that I do
when I go offline. I always find when I go offline,
like everything around me becomes more brighter, louder, stronger, Like
(07:21):
my voice of myself becomes louder. Looking outside the window,
I see colors that I've never seen before. You just
everything that is already there becomes amplified, and it is
just a beautiful reminder to take breaks from your phone
and look up. My daughter is my inspiration for that.
Obviously she doesn't have a phone, and watching her take
in the world and be so excited by seeing water
(07:43):
drip off of a leaf. It's so not a little
thing to give attention to what's around us and to
one thing, to not multitask. You know, I know that
there are a lot of podcasts right now and in
the wellness and health industry giving us more about things
that we can do to be more efficient, to get
more of our tasks done, to build on good habits
(08:05):
and stack them and all of that. And not to
say there's not something positive within those seeds of all
the words that I just said, but there's something about
not being efficient. There's something about not stacking your habits
so that you've got everything done in a day, and
instead just like being with a moment, and I recognize
(08:25):
that everything that I say is a privilege to be
able to do in our society, especially a capitalistic society
where time is money and money is how you stay
safe and well. Like this, everything I say comes with
a huge asterisk to also involve privilege, which exists, but
is sad that you need privilege to like have a
(08:47):
moment to appreciate and soak in or read and digest things.
That was a lot in a sentence, but I just
wanted to go there. That's where my brain went, and
I followed it. Okay, So I wanted to talk a
little bit about happiness today because I read this article
that talked about the experts who study happiness and it's
(09:09):
a very short article. It's on time. You can even
google it or I'll put it below, which is called
the Daily Habits of Happiness Experts. And I think the
word happy is very subjective too, so take everything that
I say with a grain of salt. But as I
read this article, I felt like I was really like
on the right track of living in this moment a
(09:32):
happy quote unquote life. That again, that word just feels
really wrong. I think I kind of want to change
it for what I experience, which is like moments of
contentment being really okay in boredom. I even crave boredom
right now and find it to be so fulfilling. I
think fulfilling is also a good word here when it
(09:53):
comes to happiness. I guess I keep extracting the word
happiness out of this because when we learn to be happy,
we think of a smile, and to me, that's not
really what like happiness necessarily is. Maybe on the outside,
that might be what it looks like sometimes, but it's
more of a feeling and sensations in a body, or
absence of sensations in a body, right like anxiety can
(10:16):
steal happiness from us, and anxiety can make us feel
very buzzy and clenched, and that can impact how we
physically feel in our body, either chronically or acutely. So recently,
finding home in my body again has been something that
(10:36):
I'm very closely working with. The last hospital visit was
very different than the first hospital visit. The first hospital visit,
I didn't know what to expect, and it was like
Jack in the box. Like my nervous system was like
jack in the box, like all of me popped out
and stayed out, And then when we left the hospital,
I kind of put that lid that Jack back in
(11:00):
the box and closed it up and work to kind
of settle, hoping that Jack would never kind of like
pop up again and you know, scare me and be
in that situation again. But when I was put back
into that situation, there was a part of me that
knew what to expect from a hospital visit and as
a result, put on a shield. I wrapped a shield
(11:21):
around myself because I knew that I was going to
have to put my daughter through painful, difficult things. I
knew that I had to consent on her behalf and
you know, holding a baby's wrist to get blood work,
you know, just anything like that is just so terrible
when you don't know what it is. You know, from
her point of view, you don't know it's for your
betterment or you're taken care of. It truly feels like
(11:42):
torture for her. But emotionally I had to shield myself
of that because I knew I had to be strong
for her and get us through that. And coming home
from that now it was like taking off this shield,
like you can't be hard anymore you have to or
you shouldn't be hard anymore. I don't want to walk
around the shield of we need to march on, you know,
(12:02):
I wanted to take that back off and reconnect with
compassion and empathy and all of that. So, like, I
know that I'm sharing little bits of my own life
through this, but I want you to also get a
taste of, like I think why this article spoke to
me so much, and also what my body, brain, and
nervous system are going through. So that if and when
(12:25):
you're ever in this situation, which at some point of
your life, like something you're going to have a jack
in the box moment right or maybe two or three,
that maybe you know a little bit like what to expect,
how to make space for yourself, and know that it's
very quote unquote normal to struggle with all sorts of things,
whether that's insomnia or sleeping. More Like I said earlier on,
(12:48):
like I'm really struggling with a sense of disorientation with time,
Like I don't know where in time I am. And
it's not just like oh it's April and I blink,
like it's truly in my mind, I'm struggling with time
and what I'm doing to ground and know where I
am in space and time and mark all of that
is really really important, and I think it has played
(13:10):
a role in my quote unquote happiness again, wrong word,
but that feeling of safety within myself that I'm that
I'm looking for. So in this article, the first question
(13:30):
that they tackled is is happiness a choice? And it
says it concludes and I agree that half yes and
half no. You know, first of all, the half no
is going to be situational related to mental health variables
that may or may not be within your own control.
And there is a big box that is like a
(13:51):
hard no. It's not just like we can all be
happy if we just put our minds to it. It's way, way,
way more complex than that. But the other half of
that is half yes, and again a million times they'll
say this, it's not like the word happiness fits perfectly
for me on this article, But there is a part
of self that we can work on to feel what
(14:14):
we're all in pursuit of, whether that's safety, connection, contentment,
feeling just I am okay in this moment. So whatever
word that is for you, peacefulness, you know, just think
about what we're all in pursuit of, because I think
this article still provides really nice building blocks of what
we can include in our lives to achieve that on
(14:37):
an intermittent basis. I say intermittent because even as we
find moments of safety, contentment, peacefulness, happiness, that is not
a paved road ahead. There are pebbles, There are twists
and turns and potholes and all the things as we
go down this road. But some of the building blocks
(14:58):
that they discuss, and I want to kind of get
like a little bit more deeply into all of them,
is social relationships, sleep, hobbies, spending time in nature, exercise,
slash playing, sports, praying, engaging with a support group, therapist,
and spending time with family outside of the household. So
I want to get back to those in just a moment,
(15:19):
to break them down a little bit more as to
how accidentally impactful these things have been for me in
making me feel okay during an okay time for self.
But ultimately, there are two things about happiness that I
think that we should know that we don't or we
forget or we become disconnected with when we find ourselves
(15:41):
deeply unhappy, whether that's depressed or just like not happy.
And number one is that happiness we feel, according to
the article, depends on the control that we feel. And
I love that because I think a lot of time,
when shit hits the fan, it is when we lose
(16:01):
control of things, a lot of our happiness goes out
the door. For myself, my daughter getting sick was a
huge lack of control that I lost. When we lose
people in our lives, that is a huge loss of
control when something's going on with our health, whether we
are sick or we don't know what we have or
we're like those are all feelings of loss of control.
(16:23):
And when we feel that way, a lot of the
happiness goes out of the door because a lot of
the stability and ground that we walk beneath that feels
safe and unshaky, gets pulled out from under us. And
so in those moments where we do lose control, because
we don't really ever have control, we sometimes feel like
we do. I think it's helpful to bring that reminder
(16:47):
to us that it feels okay to not feel happy
right now because I feel out of control about this,
because I am out of control about this, and just
like having that wrapped up in a bow in some way.
If we can bring that to the moments, the hard moments,
I think we can kind of have one of those
hand to heart moments where we breathe a little bit
(17:07):
more deeply into what is and suddenly we gain a
little bit more comfort with not having control, realizing that
any control that we sometimes have is maybe an illusion,
and that it's normal to feel this way when that
perceived control is taken from us. That was really helpful
(17:31):
for me to read remember and kind of hold on to.
The other thing about happiness that we should know but
we don't or we forget, is that happiness is actually
about being true to ourselves and allowing emotions to come
up again. I think we think of happiness as just
a smiley face and this outward projection of happiness. But
(17:53):
interestingly enough, my yoga mat going to other people's classes
has been incredibly healing for me to unpack my emotions
as they come up. And I'm really proud of myself
because I realized in class one day, as I was
crying for like the one hundredth time, that the difference
between me now and young Lisa, well, young Lisa didn't
(18:14):
have any tools, but without any of the tools, like
any of my emotions just got buried and tucked away
and hidden in my body somewhere whereas emotions, as they
are coming in and experiences are coming in, I revisit
them a lot, even though they're painful. But with that
I am folding them up and storing them into my
body somewhere where I know where they are, or I'm
(18:35):
releasing them back into the universe in a way that
says I don't need to hold onto this anymore. And
I thought this was really interesting because, like I said,
I've been crying a lot in yoga, and it's not
necessarily like the yoga. It's the stillness. It's the safe
place that I go to, and it's like allowing my
a place where I get to go to unravel. It's
not like downwhere dog does it. It could be any
(18:58):
specific pose. And I share that because if you don't
do yoga doesn't mean that this isn't inaccessible to you,
but it is hard to find a place where you
feel safe enough to unravel. But it's been really beautiful
because as I keep showing up to yoga my safe place,
and the tears are streaming down my face at any moment,
(19:18):
in any pose, I don't feel sad like I look sad, right,
because again we have these ideas that's not crying is
sad and smiley face is happy. You know. I have
that look on my face and body of somebody who's
hysterically crying shaking a little bit. But I don't feel
sadness in those moments. I feel pain to a degree,
(19:42):
but it feels much more of a relief and a release,
which I guess is really you know, no surprise, everything
we do is on purpose, including crying. But when you
were crying and you were actively allowing yourself to feel
an emotion, not stifle it because you're in public, or
because crying makes you weak, like, it is a very
different exp experience to have. And so when I keep
(20:02):
returning back, I don't show up with why am I
still crying? Why am I not over it yet? Like
it's just a very different way to approach all the emotions,
which I believe is allowing me to feel more peace
on the other side. I also mention the word of
shaking when I do this, because when you cry, you shake,
and as many of you know, I am passionate about
(20:23):
wake and shake, where you get up and you shake
your body. But if we really do look at the
animal world, and it's something I continue to study even
more and more because we are animals. You know, talk
and we do all these things, but we are animals
at the end of the day, I believe even though
we're humans, we're just a form of an animal here
when we look at animals, they don't live within our
(20:43):
social rules and society that we have set up, and
so everything that they do is for such a primal
reason for their biological survivalship, for them, for their biology
to stay alive, to stay well, and shaking without tension,
Like their bodies actually go into a shaking modality a
(21:03):
lot of the time to release energy. A lot of
the times it will be after an animal goes into
kind of more of a catonic state. It stems from
like if an animal is chasing them, they kind of
like play dead for a while. And I don't know
if they're really playing dead, but their brains really shift
into a place where they just like deeply rest, where
you would think that they're dead, and then once they're
no longer in danger, they wake up and they shake
the energy off and they're not like reading books on
(21:25):
how to stay well and release energy. They are just
doing it. So when I shake, you know, I'm not
scared of it's it's really like, wow, my body knows
what to do and breaking free of the confines of
like this is embarrassing. I don't want somebody to see
me like I need to go grab a box of tissues,
like just like letting it all just be like snotty,
(21:46):
and what it is is so freeing because it is
what we are meant to do. So I loved that
reminder that happiness is about being true to self and
allowing emotions to come up. Happiness is not just marching
on putting a smiley face on your face, putting a
big smile on your face, laughing all of that. I mean,
(22:08):
laughter is of course important, but key ingredients here to
happiness go beyond the obvious laughter and all of that.
So that just spoke very deeply to me as I'm
kind of on my journey of reputting back the pieces
of contentment into my life. So going back to those
(22:37):
building blocks, the first one is social relationships, friendship, partners,
and belonging to a community outside of the work setting,
I think we're all tired of like talking about the pandemic,
but I think that there's so much to talk about
about the side effects of the pandemic that we've all
lived through, you know. And I think that that looked
different depending on where you live and where you live
(22:59):
during the time of the last three years. But for me,
there was a major impact unknowingly on my mental health
by way of loss of seeing human beings. I maintain
friendships over you know, text messages, but having a pregnancy
during like I felt like I think maybe the height
of COVID and then afterwards wanting to protect her. There
(23:21):
was a long period of my life where I really
didn't do a lot of the things that I socially
used to do in person with other people. I think
that there is so much to having a community outside
of your work or home setting, whether that's girlfriends or
within your community, that truly provides so like, I don't
(23:46):
even think there's an English word for what social relationships
do for our heart, soul and feeling happy. And it
doesn't always need to be like deep one Like I'm
a person that when I have friendships, they are deep
and they are like you're my sole person, and we
know everything about each other, and there's not a secret
to my name, and there's not an emotion you don't know,
and you know things like that. But what I have
(24:09):
found in the last couple of months is that walking
in my town, seeing familiar faces, going to the same
yoga studio, not even knowing people's names, but just like
bodies that I familiarize with, these are really important pillars
to my day today. And it's being part of a
community that feels really really good. Okay, getting seven or
(24:33):
more hours of sleep another building block. Sleep is incredibly
important because it is going to affect everything from mood
to choosing what we eat, which then goes back to
mood and choose and how well we sleep, like the
all these things play into each other. But I truly
believe that sleep is the most important thing, and yet
it is the thing that we do the least well
(24:56):
of It's not prioritized. And I've been saying this, you know,
for a year. I remember when I got into the
online wellness world, everybody was always talking about like their
morning routine that was like the hot thing and on Instagram,
like a couple of years ago, and I'm like, I
don't have a freaking morning routine, because you need to
have a good night routine in order to have a
morning routine. And at the time, my deepest struggle was
(25:19):
with sleep, and sleep will always or still is a
problem of mine, but it's one I've worked on so
much and so intimately with to improve after a lifetime
of insomnia and sleep anxiety and all these things. But
as somebody who doesn't just pass out on the couch
like I've never ever passed out on the couch, or
not in a very long time, at least, I don't
(25:40):
just pass out in bed like, as somebody that really,
really really understands sleep difficulties, I can tell you that
when I prioritize good sleep and bedtime habit and I
get quality sleep, the next day is infinitely different. The
world looks like it's just like looking through life from
a different lens. And at the same time, it's really
(26:00):
hard to get seven or more hours of sleep, especially
my new moms out there that are breastfeeding or just
not sleeping because their babies aren't sleeping. There are plenty
of reasons and seasons of life when this just simply
isn't going to happen, and I think it's important to recognize,
like why you feel crappy the next day, not necessarily
that you should get more sleep if you can't, but
(26:21):
get some insight as to what is affecting how you feel.
And maybe that means making some changes if you can,
or maybe it means being more compassionate about with yourself
about why you feel so cranky the next day. Next
is a hobby, the building block of getting a personal hobby,
and in this article they include cooking, writing, music, reading.
(26:44):
And I found this one to be so illuminating for
me because in the past year, I've finally, finally, finally
leaned into hobbies. So you know, you guys know that
I have been learning how to sew again, something that
I used to know how to do on my sewing machine,
and it's something that I prioritize this year to refined myself,
(27:06):
and with that has come so much contentment. And again
I am very aware that like this is a privileged
thing to say and do, because who has time for
hobbies when you need to pay the bills and all
the things that we do. But I also argue that
a lot of the people that say they don't have time,
(27:27):
might have time squashed in other areas. Some might really
not have time, and it's just like privileged to have
the hobbies and they can't do that right now. But
if you can do something not for money but for
self whatever, whether that's reading, sewing, just something that's like
just so for you, not selling it, not doing anything,
(27:48):
it just feels so good to have that hobby. And again,
I think that like even the wellness culture can be
so cutthroat about everything that you're doing for wellness and
the green juices and the supplements, and again, you guys know,
I love a green juice and my supplements are pretty
a huge staple for me and staying well. But that
(28:10):
doesn't mean that there's not room for flow and undoings.
Time where you're not doing any of the things and
you're letting your mind wander as you partake in something
just for pleasure, it's pretty wonderful. Next is spending time
in nature. I think we all know that we feel
infinitely better when we spend time in nature, but a
(28:33):
lot of us don't have access to that year round
or in general, whether we live in cities or different climates.
But again, I think it's important to recognize how big
of an impact nature has on our well being and mood,
whether it means simply looking outside your window, which I'm
doing right now, and taking in all the trees that
have like suddenly bloomed, and seeing the metaphor of life
(28:56):
to how fast change happens and how it's really always happening.
But we don't realize there's just so much in nature
that helps us breathe more deeply and more connected to ourselves,
walks in nature and doing anything with our physical bodies.
I think that, really, you know, some of my best
ideas have happened in nature. My most creative moments are there.
(29:18):
And there's something really nice about getting out of our
shelters or homes we're not supposed to be living and
working indoors all day that is truly huge for us.
Exercise slash playing sports. I'm going to just call this
like moving your body in a way that feels good
for you. And I'm going to kind of like go
back to all of these in a second, because I
think they all deserve like something really important to say
(29:39):
about them as a whole. And then praying. And I
know that this one comes with a huge asterisk so
I'll revisit it in just a moment. And then they
say another building block is engaging with support groups or
therapists and can't say enough how great it is to
whether I think group therapy is wonderful, although in my
experience hard to find, like have a place where you
(30:01):
can discuss with others and use them as your mirrors,
or to feel less alone, or having a therapist like
one carved out time where you can just spill it
out without apologizing, and especially if your life is super busy,
to have that one hour carved out. Maybe you don't
do yoga where I like continuously unpack my stuff, but
with your therapist you get one hour to just like
(30:21):
lay it all out there. And then the last building
block is spending time with family outside of the household.
So when I look at all of these, it's like,
no wonder there is so much sickness, so much unwellness
in our world. You know. The first one social relationships,
building community outside of our work setting. Most of us,
(30:41):
by the pandemic have been really hindered by doing so,
and we feel fearful even being in groups. A lot
of us have carried some of that fear around with us,
and that is totally normal, but it's important to recognize
how our social relationships have been deeply impacted by the pandemic.
On top of just like the lives that we live,
(31:03):
which are so much more on our computers and phones
and not around other people sleep. Most people truly cannot
get seven hours of sleep, whether they have work obligations
to do or household chores, whatever that is, it is
really hard to get that sleep and that sleep quality.
Personal hobby I kind of talked about here is really
a huge privilege, and I recognize that although I'm pushing
(31:25):
for anybody who can to get more hobby time in,
but for the majority of our country, like having a
hobby is probably not accessible. Spending time in nature, same thing,
like having that off time to just like roam and
be or travel not very accessible to everybody. And also
a lot of us that live over here in the Northeast.
(31:46):
If you're like me, having access to it certain times
of year, there's a huge difference in my mood spring
summer to fall winter. I know this about myself, and
that is helpful to know, but it's really there. Exercise
slash play sports is what they call that, and I
think that these are the happiness experts and failing to
(32:06):
realize how both of those word choices exercise slash play
sports might even be triggering to people because exercise is
so equated with weight and doing and metrics and how
much did you walk today and how much did you
burn today? And playing sports is largely inaccessible to adults,
or if you're never good at sports, you hate sports,
(32:27):
or any of that. So I think the language here
is really needs to be spoken about so delicately when
it comes to movement, because there's so much loaded into
these words for different people that makes them think, oh,
I don't want to do any of that. I hate exercise,
I hate going to the gym, I hate soccer. Right,
but do you hate going for walks outside in nature?
(32:49):
Do you hate rollerblading? Do you hate dancing? Like there's
some sort of a movement that I believe feels good
for everybody but doesn't neatly fit into these boxes of exercise,
slash playing sports, praying. I feel like I really had
to just leave it at praying when I listed it,
and then like revisit it here. So many people have
complicated relationships to God or religion and As I've gotten older,
(33:15):
I've certainly explored my own you know, religion, And while
lots of facets don't really speak to me there, I
think that a lot of people benefit from realizing that
there's a higher power. That being said, if you don't
right now, there might be a moment where you come to.
There have been plenty of moments in my life where
I come to and I get such a strong sign
(33:38):
that there is a higher power and something beyond me.
And praying and it's not asking for anything. I think
I've said this a lot on the podcast. Prayer to
me is rarely asking for things, but more thankfulness, which
then kind of brings us a little arrow to the
right over here to really just talking about gratitude. Like
if none of the religion, spirituality stuff speaks to you,
(33:59):
always gratitude as a huge tenant of our happiness. So
again in this article and they say praying, I think
we can't just leave it at praying. We have to
break down what is prayer, Why is it good for us?
And where does it stem from in a way that
fits good in our life. So if everything relating to
praying just feels wrong to you, how does gratitude feel
for you, what are you grateful for? And how can
(34:21):
you really expand that into your day to day Because
when we are truly grateful, it shifts the dimension that
we're living within. I remember very vividly in a very
early yoga class when I was starting my practice, probably
ten twelve years ago now, the practice of yoga opened
up my heart in a way that had me feeling
very grateful after I don't know what went on in
(34:43):
that yoga session or what the teacher said or anything
like that, but I just felt so immensely grateful and
I was like, Wow, this feels so different from my
brain circuitry that is usually talking about what I lack
or why things aren't fair, And nothing had changed about
what I lacked or what wasn't fair, but yet I
like elevated into this other dimension by way of gratitude.
(35:03):
And it was one of those like aha moments in
my life that I'll never forget because again, not that
happiness is a choice, but there is a choice component
to it that we can activate then engaging with support
groups or therapists. I mean, most people don't have access
to a therapist financially, don't know where to even begin
with the process. Have had bad experiences with therapists, and
(35:25):
I think that there's also a lot of stigma when
it comes to therapy, where people think that there has
to be something wrong with them to go. There are
so many roadblocks to developing a regular practice with a
therapist or a form of therapy. When I say therapy here,
I mean talk therapy. That majority of people are going
to see support group therapists and like just kind of
(35:46):
just be like, well, that'll never be me, And I
think that it can be all of us hopefully if
you know, insurance can come through for more people too,
or or through workplaces, therapy can be provided in a
way that everybody has access to this because it is
the things that I'm dealing with, by the way, I
know that I share them here, and maybe it feels
(36:06):
like I think that I'm the center of the universe,
but it's truly not the case. I share what's going
on with me because you guys come to hear with me,
and I share that. But I mean what other people
go through in this world, the magnitude of the pain
that every person carries. I in no way I think
that I carry more of that if anything, I think
that these moments humble me and realizing that most people
(36:29):
are walking around with so much pain, feelings of stuckness,
lack of autonomy over their lives, whether they're in relationships
that are abusive, and I've just I feel like I've
just been witnessed to a lot of these types of
things lately. And it's why I bring up this topic today,
not because me, me, me, me me, but because of
(36:50):
we we we we we like all of us are
going through something hard while also being okay slash not
okay or we will be there in a point of
time and we will have family there and friends there,
our acquaintance is there. And re gooing back to the
building blocks of how can I feel a little bit more? Okay?
I want them to be available. I want them to
(37:11):
be reminders. And that doesn't mean that we go through
all of these right like who has time for all
of these to get them all right right now? But
can we you know, right in our gratitude journal a
couple things that we're grateful for, can we throw our
bodies on the bath mat, not even a yoga mat,
and just give our time, ourself time to express our
emotions can we set up a dinner with our friends,
(37:32):
or go for a walk with a friend, or walk
out in nature and put our phone behind like one
of these things can and will make a huge difference
in our lives for just a moment even But that
moment matters because I said, happiness is not a current
like a paved road, and oh, I'm happy right now,
it's I'm happy, and then I'm kind of sad, and
I'm happy, and I'm kind of sad because there is
(37:52):
a lot of sadness around us, and pretending that it's
not would be this false version of happiness that wouldn't
suit any of us. So in some I think that,
of course we're going to have a happiness problem, because
there are deep problems in this world and in our
lives and all around us. But there are also building
blocks that we can put into place so that we
(38:14):
can feel okay enough to live out our purpose and
our authentic lives. So in some the article says that
the perfect cocktail of happiness comes from a sense of
control or autonomy over one's life, is guided by meaning
and purpose and connecting with others. And on that note,
(38:35):
I feel extra excited to go on the met treat
because that's exactly what all of us are going to
get out of this. We're going to connect and refine
or clarify our own purpose, and we're going to connect
with others to get that. I certainly hope that I'll
have the opportunity to lead more, if not like Bigger
(38:56):
less Destination Y for destination Ye me treat versions because
I think, well, I guess I will wait to see
how the mutree goes before I say what I think.
But I believe that there's incredible power in coming together
as a community, unraveling to come back together, and showing
parts of our hearts that we otherwise tuck away in
(39:18):
a space that feels really safe to be. So I
want to thank you for hanging in with this podcast
with me and being here for a season of Wonky
WONKYSM for me where a lot of the time I'm
really all over the place, and yeah, being part of
our family here at the Truthiest Life. I hope you
(39:38):
all have a great week. I can't believe we're wrapping
up April. That is absolutely mind blowing. But May is
a beautiful month. My husband is turning forty, We have
a lot going on in this household, and I am
leaning into all of the little things going on, so
I will see you here back in May two
No, you'll be Even when times get hard and you
feel you're in the dark, you see just how beautiful
life can be. When you saften your heart, you can
(00:23):
finally start to live your truth seious life. Hello everyone,
welcome back to The Truth Is Life. It's your host
Lisa Haim, and I'm pretty excited to be on the
mic and touch base with all of you. I've been
on social break for I don't know, like I think
(00:44):
it's three weeks. I keep saying that I don't know
like where I am in space and time. The fact
that it is April right now is just overwhelmingly to
my brain. You know, a lot has happened in the
past year for me personally. I know a lot of
you are familiar, but just to kind of like recap
(01:06):
the events of just six months, I had an ectopic pregnancy,
so that was a loss, followed by my daughter getting sick,
a hospitalization, a couple of months of waiting and recovering
from that, and then another sickness and hospitalization. So I'm
coming out of the other side of that and there's
(01:26):
a lot there. I've mentioned it in this podcast, and
I don't want it to be overkilled by any means,
but I also don't want to not give you some
insight as to what I'm going through. But more importantly,
like pretend that I'm fine. We don't need more people
pretending they're fine. We need, I think, more people showing
up when they're kind of not fine, as long as
(01:48):
they have a limited capacity to do so, which in
this moment I do. But it has been a lot
of taking care of myself and my home, and she's
doing amazing. That's the question I get the most and
I'm happiest to answer, which is solely is really doing phenomenal.
We do have a lot of question marks left over
and a lot of follow up doctor's appointments, and so
(02:10):
my life has been kind of truncated by that taking
care of myself and preparing for the metreat, which we
planned months ago and is coming at actually a really
perfect time if you're unfamiliar. Back in August of twenty
twenty two, I took myself on my own retreat by myself,
(02:31):
scheduled a bunch of different healing modalities and time where
I could step away from my responsibilities and dive inward
to figure out, like, who the heck am I now?
After all of the life changes that I've gone through.
It was incredible and I felt called to create this
for other people as well. Has got a lot of
(02:51):
demand for oh, how can I create my own metreat?
And I was like, you know what, I'm feeling really
called to do a retreat this year. So it is
called the met Treat to Guatemala. We have twenty participants
going down to Guatemala for a couple of days, and
within these couple of days, we are doing a lot
of yoga, somatic yoga, leaning into our bodies, spirituality, journaling, meditation, breathworks,
(03:17):
sound baths, connecting with each other. One of the biggest
concerns that people had was going on a retreat that
they found out from the Internet and not knowing anybody
else there and being really afraid of like who are
these people. So one of the things that we did,
which has been super anchoring for me as well, is
we had a WhatsApp group. We have a WhatsApp group,
and the WhatsApp group has been incredible and sharing different
(03:41):
parts of ourselves over the last few months. I'll often
jump in with a prompt where people just share really
honestly what's going on or somebody else just might chime
in and say something really positive or something honest. And
it's pretty incredible because none of us have met before,
and yet we are walking into this trip with some
sort of a solid foundation of a friendship. And I'm
(04:02):
really excited for this to come to Fruition in a
little under two weeks now, and I am a host
and a healer on it. I will be providing some
of the services, but I'm also going to be sitting
back to enjoy the magic of the other activities that
are going to be going on that I'm not myself leading.
(04:22):
I will be teaching a little bit of yoga, but
I really wanted to bring the magic of who I
go to when things get stormy, and so I'm bringing
one of my favorite yoga teachers, Tracy Toomey McQuaid. She
teaches at Yoga Shanti, which you can stream, and Tracy
is magical. She's a voice of an angel. She plays
this harmonium and she has a way of just seeing
(04:44):
such profound things that when you walk away from the mat,
like something just shifts in your life and makes a
little bit more sense now than it did before. I'm
also bringing when I went on my own metreat. I
went to Florida because my best friend and her wife
were living there, staying there say they live in London.
And these two women are incredible mirrors reflectors in my life.
(05:06):
They're always helping me get through hard stuff by really
just showing up as mirrors, helping me see myself more clearly.
And I was afraid that being with them would take
away from my carved out alone time, but it actually
did the opposite. I was able to dive more deeply
into myself by having them there to help me prompt
myself ask furthering, deepening questions. And what I learned from
(05:27):
that is that ametri does not need to be done alone.
And what these women will shortly find out, if they
haven't already, is that by having people around, we actually
engage in conversations which take us more deeply into ourselves.
And so Jerry's my best friend who will not be
able to come, but her wife Lulu is coming. She's
going to be one of the hosts. So I'm just
like so excited to bring these group of women that
(05:50):
trusts me immensely into a healing safe space and bring
with me some human energies that are some of the
best that I know. And when I say best that
I know, I don't just mean like overwhelming happiness. I
mean people that, yes, they are the cheerleaders, they are
going to be the first ones wake and shaking when
we do that every morning, but they are just people
(06:13):
that also know how to help you get through heavy
things and we'll be real with you, kind of like
big sisters type of a feeling. And I'm just really
really excited to go. It definitely comes with fears as well,
but I do trust that things are in place at home,
and I am feeling secure to go on this journey
(06:37):
for all the people that put trust in me and
also for myself. So today on Lisa Lately, it's a
little bit different of Lisa Lately. I'm not going to
cover four distinct topics. Instead, I wanted to talk a
little bit about happiness. As I've been on social media break,
I always kind of find interesting things that inspire me
(07:01):
that otherwise, with the use of social media regularly in
my life, I might see not have time to fully explore,
or if I fully explore it, I might not give
it the full brain attention and power that I do
when I go offline. I always find when I go offline,
like everything around me becomes more brighter, louder, stronger, Like
(07:21):
my voice of myself becomes louder. Looking outside the window,
I see colors that I've never seen before. You just
everything that is already there becomes amplified, and it is
just a beautiful reminder to take breaks from your phone
and look up. My daughter is my inspiration for that.
Obviously she doesn't have a phone, and watching her take
in the world and be so excited by seeing water
(07:43):
drip off of a leaf. It's so not a little
thing to give attention to what's around us and to
one thing, to not multitask. You know, I know that
there are a lot of podcasts right now and in
the wellness and health industry giving us more about things
that we can do to be more efficient, to get
more of our tasks done, to build on good habits
(08:05):
and stack them and all of that. And not to
say there's not something positive within those seeds of all
the words that I just said, but there's something about
not being efficient. There's something about not stacking your habits
so that you've got everything done in a day, and
instead just like being with a moment, and I recognize
(08:25):
that everything that I say is a privilege to be
able to do in our society, especially a capitalistic society
where time is money and money is how you stay
safe and well. Like this, everything I say comes with
a huge asterisk to also involve privilege, which exists, but
is sad that you need privilege to like have a
(08:47):
moment to appreciate and soak in or read and digest things.
That was a lot in a sentence, but I just
wanted to go there. That's where my brain went, and
I followed it. Okay, So I wanted to talk a
little bit about happiness today because I read this article
that talked about the experts who study happiness and it's
(09:09):
a very short article. It's on time. You can even
google it or I'll put it below, which is called
the Daily Habits of Happiness Experts. And I think the
word happy is very subjective too, so take everything that
I say with a grain of salt. But as I
read this article, I felt like I was really like
on the right track of living in this moment a
(09:32):
happy quote unquote life. That again, that word just feels
really wrong. I think I kind of want to change
it for what I experience, which is like moments of
contentment being really okay in boredom. I even crave boredom
right now and find it to be so fulfilling. I
think fulfilling is also a good word here when it
(09:53):
comes to happiness. I guess I keep extracting the word
happiness out of this because when we learn to be happy,
we think of a smile, and to me, that's not
really what like happiness necessarily is. Maybe on the outside,
that might be what it looks like sometimes, but it's
more of a feeling and sensations in a body, or
absence of sensations in a body, right like anxiety can
(10:16):
steal happiness from us, and anxiety can make us feel
very buzzy and clenched, and that can impact how we
physically feel in our body, either chronically or acutely. So recently,
finding home in my body again has been something that
(10:36):
I'm very closely working with. The last hospital visit was
very different than the first hospital visit. The first hospital visit,
I didn't know what to expect, and it was like
Jack in the box. Like my nervous system was like
jack in the box, like all of me popped out
and stayed out, And then when we left the hospital,
I kind of put that lid that Jack back in
(11:00):
the box and closed it up and work to kind
of settle, hoping that Jack would never kind of like
pop up again and you know, scare me and be
in that situation again. But when I was put back
into that situation, there was a part of me that
knew what to expect from a hospital visit and as
a result, put on a shield. I wrapped a shield
(11:21):
around myself because I knew that I was going to
have to put my daughter through painful, difficult things. I
knew that I had to consent on her behalf and
you know, holding a baby's wrist to get blood work,
you know, just anything like that is just so terrible
when you don't know what it is. You know, from
her point of view, you don't know it's for your
betterment or you're taken care of. It truly feels like
(11:42):
torture for her. But emotionally I had to shield myself
of that because I knew I had to be strong
for her and get us through that. And coming home
from that now it was like taking off this shield,
like you can't be hard anymore you have to or
you shouldn't be hard anymore. I don't want to walk
around the shield of we need to march on, you know,
(12:02):
I wanted to take that back off and reconnect with
compassion and empathy and all of that. So, like, I
know that I'm sharing little bits of my own life
through this, but I want you to also get a
taste of, like I think why this article spoke to
me so much, and also what my body, brain, and
nervous system are going through. So that if and when
(12:25):
you're ever in this situation, which at some point of
your life, like something you're going to have a jack
in the box moment right or maybe two or three,
that maybe you know a little bit like what to expect,
how to make space for yourself, and know that it's
very quote unquote normal to struggle with all sorts of things,
whether that's insomnia or sleeping. More Like I said earlier on,
(12:48):
like I'm really struggling with a sense of disorientation with time,
Like I don't know where in time I am. And
it's not just like oh it's April and I blink,
like it's truly in my mind, I'm struggling with time
and what I'm doing to ground and know where I
am in space and time and mark all of that
is really really important, and I think it has played
(13:10):
a role in my quote unquote happiness again, wrong word,
but that feeling of safety within myself that I'm that
I'm looking for. So in this article, the first question
(13:30):
that they tackled is is happiness a choice? And it
says it concludes and I agree that half yes and
half no. You know, first of all, the half no
is going to be situational related to mental health variables
that may or may not be within your own control.
And there is a big box that is like a
(13:51):
hard no. It's not just like we can all be
happy if we just put our minds to it. It's way, way,
way more complex than that. But the other half of
that is half yes, and again a million times they'll
say this, it's not like the word happiness fits perfectly
for me on this article, But there is a part
of self that we can work on to feel what
(14:14):
we're all in pursuit of, whether that's safety, connection, contentment,
feeling just I am okay in this moment. So whatever
word that is for you, peacefulness, you know, just think
about what we're all in pursuit of, because I think
this article still provides really nice building blocks of what
we can include in our lives to achieve that on
(14:37):
an intermittent basis. I say intermittent because even as we
find moments of safety, contentment, peacefulness, happiness, that is not
a paved road ahead. There are pebbles, There are twists
and turns and potholes and all the things as we
go down this road. But some of the building blocks
(14:58):
that they discuss, and I want to kind of get
like a little bit more deeply into all of them,
is social relationships, sleep, hobbies, spending time in nature, exercise,
slash playing, sports, praying, engaging with a support group, therapist,
and spending time with family outside of the household. So
I want to get back to those in just a moment,
(15:19):
to break them down a little bit more as to
how accidentally impactful these things have been for me in
making me feel okay during an okay time for self.
But ultimately, there are two things about happiness that I
think that we should know that we don't or we
forget or we become disconnected with when we find ourselves
(15:41):
deeply unhappy, whether that's depressed or just like not happy.
And number one is that happiness we feel, according to
the article, depends on the control that we feel. And
I love that because I think a lot of time,
when shit hits the fan, it is when we lose
(16:01):
control of things, a lot of our happiness goes out
the door. For myself, my daughter getting sick was a
huge lack of control that I lost. When we lose
people in our lives, that is a huge loss of
control when something's going on with our health, whether we
are sick or we don't know what we have or
we're like those are all feelings of loss of control.
(16:23):
And when we feel that way, a lot of the
happiness goes out of the door because a lot of
the stability and ground that we walk beneath that feels
safe and unshaky, gets pulled out from under us. And
so in those moments where we do lose control, because
we don't really ever have control, we sometimes feel like
we do. I think it's helpful to bring that reminder
(16:47):
to us that it feels okay to not feel happy
right now because I feel out of control about this,
because I am out of control about this, and just
like having that wrapped up in a bow in some way.
If we can bring that to the moments, the hard moments,
I think we can kind of have one of those
hand to heart moments where we breathe a little bit
(17:07):
more deeply into what is and suddenly we gain a
little bit more comfort with not having control, realizing that
any control that we sometimes have is maybe an illusion,
and that it's normal to feel this way when that
perceived control is taken from us. That was really helpful
(17:31):
for me to read remember and kind of hold on to.
The other thing about happiness that we should know but
we don't or we forget, is that happiness is actually
about being true to ourselves and allowing emotions to come
up again. I think we think of happiness as just
a smiley face and this outward projection of happiness. But
(17:53):
interestingly enough, my yoga mat going to other people's classes
has been incredibly healing for me to unpack my emotions
as they come up. And I'm really proud of myself
because I realized in class one day, as I was
crying for like the one hundredth time, that the difference
between me now and young Lisa, well, young Lisa didn't
(18:14):
have any tools, but without any of the tools, like
any of my emotions just got buried and tucked away
and hidden in my body somewhere whereas emotions, as they
are coming in and experiences are coming in, I revisit
them a lot, even though they're painful. But with that
I am folding them up and storing them into my
body somewhere where I know where they are, or I'm
(18:35):
releasing them back into the universe in a way that
says I don't need to hold onto this anymore. And
I thought this was really interesting because, like I said,
I've been crying a lot in yoga, and it's not
necessarily like the yoga. It's the stillness. It's the safe
place that I go to, and it's like allowing my
a place where I get to go to unravel. It's
not like downwhere dog does it. It could be any
(18:58):
specific pose. And I share that because if you don't
do yoga doesn't mean that this isn't inaccessible to you,
but it is hard to find a place where you
feel safe enough to unravel. But it's been really beautiful
because as I keep showing up to yoga my safe place,
and the tears are streaming down my face at any moment,
(19:18):
in any pose, I don't feel sad like I look sad, right,
because again we have these ideas that's not crying is
sad and smiley face is happy. You know. I have
that look on my face and body of somebody who's
hysterically crying shaking a little bit. But I don't feel
sadness in those moments. I feel pain to a degree,
(19:42):
but it feels much more of a relief and a release,
which I guess is really you know, no surprise, everything
we do is on purpose, including crying. But when you
were crying and you were actively allowing yourself to feel
an emotion, not stifle it because you're in public, or
because crying makes you weak, like, it is a very
different exp experience to have. And so when I keep
(20:02):
returning back, I don't show up with why am I
still crying? Why am I not over it yet? Like
it's just a very different way to approach all the emotions,
which I believe is allowing me to feel more peace
on the other side. I also mention the word of
shaking when I do this, because when you cry, you shake,
and as many of you know, I am passionate about
(20:23):
wake and shake, where you get up and you shake
your body. But if we really do look at the
animal world, and it's something I continue to study even
more and more because we are animals. You know, talk
and we do all these things, but we are animals
at the end of the day, I believe even though
we're humans, we're just a form of an animal here
when we look at animals, they don't live within our
(20:43):
social rules and society that we have set up, and
so everything that they do is for such a primal
reason for their biological survivalship, for them, for their biology
to stay alive, to stay well, and shaking without tension,
Like their bodies actually go into a shaking modality a
(21:03):
lot of the time to release energy. A lot of
the times it will be after an animal goes into
kind of more of a catonic state. It stems from
like if an animal is chasing them, they kind of
like play dead for a while. And I don't know
if they're really playing dead, but their brains really shift
into a place where they just like deeply rest, where
you would think that they're dead, and then once they're
no longer in danger, they wake up and they shake
the energy off and they're not like reading books on
(21:25):
how to stay well and release energy. They are just
doing it. So when I shake, you know, I'm not
scared of it's it's really like, wow, my body knows
what to do and breaking free of the confines of
like this is embarrassing. I don't want somebody to see
me like I need to go grab a box of tissues,
like just like letting it all just be like snotty,
(21:46):
and what it is is so freeing because it is
what we are meant to do. So I loved that
reminder that happiness is about being true to self and
allowing emotions to come up. Happiness is not just marching
on putting a smiley face on your face, putting a
big smile on your face, laughing all of that. I mean,
(22:08):
laughter is of course important, but key ingredients here to
happiness go beyond the obvious laughter and all of that.
So that just spoke very deeply to me as I'm
kind of on my journey of reputting back the pieces
of contentment into my life. So going back to those
(22:37):
building blocks, the first one is social relationships, friendship, partners,
and belonging to a community outside of the work setting,
I think we're all tired of like talking about the pandemic,
but I think that there's so much to talk about
about the side effects of the pandemic that we've all
lived through, you know. And I think that that looked
different depending on where you live and where you live
(22:59):
during the time of the last three years. But for me,
there was a major impact unknowingly on my mental health
by way of loss of seeing human beings. I maintain
friendships over you know, text messages, but having a pregnancy
during like I felt like I think maybe the height
of COVID and then afterwards wanting to protect her. There
(23:21):
was a long period of my life where I really
didn't do a lot of the things that I socially
used to do in person with other people. I think
that there is so much to having a community outside
of your work or home setting, whether that's girlfriends or
within your community, that truly provides so like, I don't
(23:46):
even think there's an English word for what social relationships
do for our heart, soul and feeling happy. And it
doesn't always need to be like deep one Like I'm
a person that when I have friendships, they are deep
and they are like you're my sole person, and we
know everything about each other, and there's not a secret
to my name, and there's not an emotion you don't know,
and you know things like that. But what I have
(24:09):
found in the last couple of months is that walking
in my town, seeing familiar faces, going to the same
yoga studio, not even knowing people's names, but just like
bodies that I familiarize with, these are really important pillars
to my day today. And it's being part of a
community that feels really really good. Okay, getting seven or
(24:33):
more hours of sleep another building block. Sleep is incredibly
important because it is going to affect everything from mood
to choosing what we eat, which then goes back to
mood and choose and how well we sleep, like the
all these things play into each other. But I truly
believe that sleep is the most important thing, and yet
it is the thing that we do the least well
(24:56):
of It's not prioritized. And I've been saying this, you know,
for a year. I remember when I got into the
online wellness world, everybody was always talking about like their
morning routine that was like the hot thing and on Instagram,
like a couple of years ago, and I'm like, I
don't have a freaking morning routine, because you need to
have a good night routine in order to have a
morning routine. And at the time, my deepest struggle was
(25:19):
with sleep, and sleep will always or still is a
problem of mine, but it's one I've worked on so
much and so intimately with to improve after a lifetime
of insomnia and sleep anxiety and all these things. But
as somebody who doesn't just pass out on the couch
like I've never ever passed out on the couch, or
not in a very long time, at least, I don't
(25:40):
just pass out in bed like, as somebody that really,
really really understands sleep difficulties, I can tell you that
when I prioritize good sleep and bedtime habit and I
get quality sleep, the next day is infinitely different. The
world looks like it's just like looking through life from
a different lens. And at the same time, it's really
(26:00):
hard to get seven or more hours of sleep, especially
my new moms out there that are breastfeeding or just
not sleeping because their babies aren't sleeping. There are plenty
of reasons and seasons of life when this just simply
isn't going to happen, and I think it's important to recognize,
like why you feel crappy the next day, not necessarily
that you should get more sleep if you can't, but
(26:21):
get some insight as to what is affecting how you feel.
And maybe that means making some changes if you can,
or maybe it means being more compassionate about with yourself
about why you feel so cranky the next day. Next
is a hobby, the building block of getting a personal hobby,
and in this article they include cooking, writing, music, reading.
(26:44):
And I found this one to be so illuminating for
me because in the past year, I've finally, finally, finally
leaned into hobbies. So you know, you guys know that
I have been learning how to sew again, something that
I used to know how to do on my sewing machine,
and it's something that I prioritize this year to refined myself,
(27:06):
and with that has come so much contentment. And again
I am very aware that like this is a privileged
thing to say and do, because who has time for
hobbies when you need to pay the bills and all
the things that we do. But I also argue that
a lot of the people that say they don't have time,
(27:27):
might have time squashed in other areas. Some might really
not have time, and it's just like privileged to have
the hobbies and they can't do that right now. But
if you can do something not for money but for
self whatever, whether that's reading, sewing, just something that's like
just so for you, not selling it, not doing anything,
(27:48):
it just feels so good to have that hobby. And again,
I think that like even the wellness culture can be
so cutthroat about everything that you're doing for wellness and
the green juices and the supplements, and again, you guys know,
I love a green juice and my supplements are pretty
a huge staple for me and staying well. But that
(28:10):
doesn't mean that there's not room for flow and undoings.
Time where you're not doing any of the things and
you're letting your mind wander as you partake in something
just for pleasure, it's pretty wonderful. Next is spending time
in nature. I think we all know that we feel
infinitely better when we spend time in nature, but a
(28:33):
lot of us don't have access to that year round
or in general, whether we live in cities or different climates.
But again, I think it's important to recognize how big
of an impact nature has on our well being and mood,
whether it means simply looking outside your window, which I'm
doing right now, and taking in all the trees that
have like suddenly bloomed, and seeing the metaphor of life
(28:56):
to how fast change happens and how it's really always happening.
But we don't realize there's just so much in nature
that helps us breathe more deeply and more connected to ourselves,
walks in nature and doing anything with our physical bodies.
I think that, really, you know, some of my best
ideas have happened in nature. My most creative moments are there.
(29:18):
And there's something really nice about getting out of our
shelters or homes we're not supposed to be living and
working indoors all day that is truly huge for us.
Exercise slash playing sports. I'm going to just call this
like moving your body in a way that feels good
for you. And I'm going to kind of like go
back to all of these in a second, because I
think they all deserve like something really important to say
(29:39):
about them as a whole. And then praying. And I
know that this one comes with a huge asterisk so
I'll revisit it in just a moment. And then they
say another building block is engaging with support groups or
therapists and can't say enough how great it is to
whether I think group therapy is wonderful, although in my
experience hard to find, like have a place where you
(30:01):
can discuss with others and use them as your mirrors,
or to feel less alone, or having a therapist like
one carved out time where you can just spill it
out without apologizing, and especially if your life is super busy,
to have that one hour carved out. Maybe you don't
do yoga where I like continuously unpack my stuff, but
with your therapist you get one hour to just like
(30:21):
lay it all out there. And then the last building
block is spending time with family outside of the household.
So when I look at all of these, it's like,
no wonder there is so much sickness, so much unwellness
in our world. You know. The first one social relationships,
building community outside of our work setting. Most of us,
(30:41):
by the pandemic have been really hindered by doing so,
and we feel fearful even being in groups. A lot
of us have carried some of that fear around with us,
and that is totally normal, but it's important to recognize
how our social relationships have been deeply impacted by the pandemic.
On top of just like the lives that we live,
(31:03):
which are so much more on our computers and phones
and not around other people sleep. Most people truly cannot
get seven hours of sleep, whether they have work obligations
to do or household chores, whatever that is, it is
really hard to get that sleep and that sleep quality.
Personal hobby I kind of talked about here is really
a huge privilege, and I recognize that although I'm pushing
(31:25):
for anybody who can to get more hobby time in,
but for the majority of our country, like having a
hobby is probably not accessible. Spending time in nature, same thing,
like having that off time to just like roam and
be or travel not very accessible to everybody. And also
a lot of us that live over here in the Northeast.
(31:46):
If you're like me, having access to it certain times
of year, there's a huge difference in my mood spring
summer to fall winter. I know this about myself, and
that is helpful to know, but it's really there. Exercise
slash play sports is what they call that, and I
think that these are the happiness experts and failing to
(32:06):
realize how both of those word choices exercise slash play
sports might even be triggering to people because exercise is
so equated with weight and doing and metrics and how
much did you walk today and how much did you
burn today? And playing sports is largely inaccessible to adults,
or if you're never good at sports, you hate sports,
(32:27):
or any of that. So I think the language here
is really needs to be spoken about so delicately when
it comes to movement, because there's so much loaded into
these words for different people that makes them think, oh,
I don't want to do any of that. I hate exercise,
I hate going to the gym, I hate soccer. Right,
but do you hate going for walks outside in nature?
(32:49):
Do you hate rollerblading? Do you hate dancing? Like there's
some sort of a movement that I believe feels good
for everybody but doesn't neatly fit into these boxes of exercise,
slash playing sports, praying. I feel like I really had
to just leave it at praying when I listed it,
and then like revisit it here. So many people have
complicated relationships to God or religion and As I've gotten older,
(33:15):
I've certainly explored my own you know, religion, And while
lots of facets don't really speak to me there, I
think that a lot of people benefit from realizing that
there's a higher power. That being said, if you don't
right now, there might be a moment where you come to.
There have been plenty of moments in my life where
I come to and I get such a strong sign
(33:38):
that there is a higher power and something beyond me.
And praying and it's not asking for anything. I think
I've said this a lot on the podcast. Prayer to
me is rarely asking for things, but more thankfulness, which
then kind of brings us a little arrow to the
right over here to really just talking about gratitude. Like
if none of the religion, spirituality stuff speaks to you,
(33:59):
always gratitude as a huge tenant of our happiness. So
again in this article and they say praying, I think
we can't just leave it at praying. We have to
break down what is prayer, Why is it good for us?
And where does it stem from in a way that
fits good in our life. So if everything relating to
praying just feels wrong to you, how does gratitude feel
for you, what are you grateful for? And how can
(34:21):
you really expand that into your day to day Because
when we are truly grateful, it shifts the dimension that
we're living within. I remember very vividly in a very
early yoga class when I was starting my practice, probably
ten twelve years ago now, the practice of yoga opened
up my heart in a way that had me feeling
very grateful after I don't know what went on in
(34:43):
that yoga session or what the teacher said or anything
like that, but I just felt so immensely grateful and
I was like, Wow, this feels so different from my
brain circuitry that is usually talking about what I lack
or why things aren't fair, And nothing had changed about
what I lacked or what wasn't fair, but yet I
like elevated into this other dimension by way of gratitude.
(35:03):
And it was one of those like aha moments in
my life that I'll never forget because again, not that
happiness is a choice, but there is a choice component
to it that we can activate then engaging with support
groups or therapists. I mean, most people don't have access
to a therapist financially, don't know where to even begin
with the process. Have had bad experiences with therapists, and
(35:25):
I think that there's also a lot of stigma when
it comes to therapy, where people think that there has
to be something wrong with them to go. There are
so many roadblocks to developing a regular practice with a
therapist or a form of therapy. When I say therapy here,
I mean talk therapy. That majority of people are going
to see support group therapists and like just kind of
(35:46):
just be like, well, that'll never be me, And I
think that it can be all of us hopefully if
you know, insurance can come through for more people too,
or or through workplaces, therapy can be provided in a
way that everybody has access to this because it is
the things that I'm dealing with, by the way, I
know that I share them here, and maybe it feels
(36:06):
like I think that I'm the center of the universe,
but it's truly not the case. I share what's going
on with me because you guys come to hear with me,
and I share that. But I mean what other people
go through in this world, the magnitude of the pain
that every person carries. I in no way I think
that I carry more of that if anything, I think
that these moments humble me and realizing that most people
(36:29):
are walking around with so much pain, feelings of stuckness,
lack of autonomy over their lives, whether they're in relationships
that are abusive, and I've just I feel like I've
just been witnessed to a lot of these types of
things lately. And it's why I bring up this topic today,
not because me, me, me, me me, but because of
(36:50):
we we we we we like all of us are
going through something hard while also being okay slash not
okay or we will be there in a point of
time and we will have family there and friends there,
our acquaintance is there. And re gooing back to the
building blocks of how can I feel a little bit more? Okay?
I want them to be available. I want them to
(37:11):
be reminders. And that doesn't mean that we go through
all of these right like who has time for all
of these to get them all right right now? But
can we you know, right in our gratitude journal a
couple things that we're grateful for, can we throw our
bodies on the bath mat, not even a yoga mat,
and just give our time, ourself time to express our
emotions can we set up a dinner with our friends,
(37:32):
or go for a walk with a friend, or walk
out in nature and put our phone behind like one
of these things can and will make a huge difference
in our lives for just a moment even But that
moment matters because I said, happiness is not a current
like a paved road, and oh, I'm happy right now,
it's I'm happy, and then I'm kind of sad, and
I'm happy, and I'm kind of sad because there is
(37:52):
a lot of sadness around us, and pretending that it's
not would be this false version of happiness that wouldn't
suit any of us. So in some I think that,
of course we're going to have a happiness problem, because
there are deep problems in this world and in our
lives and all around us. But there are also building
blocks that we can put into place so that we
(38:14):
can feel okay enough to live out our purpose and
our authentic lives. So in some the article says that
the perfect cocktail of happiness comes from a sense of
control or autonomy over one's life, is guided by meaning
and purpose and connecting with others. And on that note,
(38:35):
I feel extra excited to go on the met treat
because that's exactly what all of us are going to
get out of this. We're going to connect and refine
or clarify our own purpose, and we're going to connect
with others to get that. I certainly hope that I'll
have the opportunity to lead more, if not like Bigger
(38:56):
less Destination Y for destination Ye me treat versions because
I think, well, I guess I will wait to see
how the mutree goes before I say what I think.
But I believe that there's incredible power in coming together
as a community, unraveling to come back together, and showing
parts of our hearts that we otherwise tuck away in
(39:18):
a space that feels really safe to be. So I
want to thank you for hanging in with this podcast
with me and being here for a season of Wonky
WONKYSM for me where a lot of the time I'm
really all over the place, and yeah, being part of
our family here at the Truthiest Life. I hope you
(39:38):
all have a great week. I can't believe we're wrapping
up April. That is absolutely mind blowing. But May is
a beautiful month. My husband is turning forty, We have
a lot going on in this household, and I am
leaning into all of the little things going on, so
I will see you here back in May two
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